Insecurity Deposit: Your First Month's Rent and Your Pack of Marlboros

BELMONT, CA -- Beginning today (January 9th, 2009), residents of the city of Belmont who live in multi-unit buildings will not be allowed to smoke inside their homes, according to Code Enforcement Officer Kirk Buckman.

The city's ordinance, adopted in November 2007, prohibits smoking in apartments, condominiums and townhouses that share a common floor and ceiling, Buckman said.

--KGO-TV 7 San Francisco and Bay City News, Inc.

Who thinks this is a good idea? Who thinks this is a bad idea? What do I think about this idea?

Well, allow me to tell you what I think.

First of all, I think the ordinance is incredibly silly, creepy, and most of all…dangerous.

Secondly, I want to know the name of the Social Engineer who is conducting out country’s train along the steel rails to the Land of Dystopia.

The government of Belmont, CA. has decided that the rights of property owners, their renters, and personal choice are far less important than imposing their will upon others.

I remember a time when debates about gay relationships, porn, abortion etc. revolved around concerns that government was trying to gain control of the bedroom activities of free Americans.

Who knew that a few years later government would make, in this case, a successful attempt to legislate restrictions on personal activities that take place in one’s living room, bathroom, and kitchen?

Un-frickin’-believeable, and…unbelievably sad.

If a property owner wants to make his complex smoke-free, have at it. Let him or her have all of the smoke-free, joy-joy they want.

But, for the government to tell an apartment complex owner that his tenants are forbidden to smoke is a much bigger cancer threat to the country than a wisp of Marlboro exhalation is a bodily cancer threat to one’s next door neighbor.

And it is, in a word, bullshit.

I know...

This ordinance was probably initiated by some self-loathing, too much spare time, namby-pamby, it’s all about the cheeldren, busy body who may or may not live in an apartment complex.

Unfortunately, far too many ninnies today, believe they have been put on this earth to extinguish the behaviors with which they disagree.

And far too often, politicians go along with these “public interest” cabals so they don’t come off as being seen as a heartless ghoul who wants our cheeldren to develop asthma.

In many states and municipalities, business owners are required to run their restaurants, bars, and now apartment complexes in a smoke free way that the government sees fit, not the as the owner sees fit.

Welcome to 21st Century America, bitches…Leave your cigarettes, and more importantly, your property rights and personal freedoms at the door.

As for me? Big Brother can have my smokes when he pries them from my cold, dead, nicotine stained hands.

And now, one last item.

Longtime Bagwine friend and acerbic commenter, Songbird, is having a Birthday today.

If you have a minute to spare, pop on over to her site HERE, and give her some Birthday lovin’.

From what I have gleaned over the years, she loves wet, sloppy tongue action.

Happy Birthday, Songbird.

To the rest of you…Smoke em’ if ya got em’, and…

Cheers!!